Windwalker - Elaine Cunningham [128]
Shakti looked past the truculent warrior to his troops. Some had been wounded. The bandages were still new, the blood that stained them still bright. "How many humans did you fight, and where are they now?" she said briskly. "If we take their raiding party now, we will decimate their numbers and weigh the final attack in our favor."
"A good strategy," Brindlor observed. He shrugged aside Gorlist's warning glare.
"Come," Shakti said and strode toward her silent army. She took only a score of them-more to provide protection against possible drow treachery than to bring against the humans.
They made their way though a series of tunnels and emerged on a narrow walkway overlooking a high-ceilinged passage. A small band of humans walked along, carrying their dead and wounded with them.
There was something familiar about one of them: the black hair, the breadth of his shoulders, his way of moving. A slow, feral smile lit Shakti's face as she recognized Liriel's pet human.
She began to chant a prayer to Lolth. In response, thousands of spiders emerged from their hidden places and swarmed toward the warriors. They launched themselves from the walls, trailing silken threads. For several moments the air was dark with leaping spiders and thick with the startled curses of the Rashemi and the futile clang of their swords against the stone. Spider web was strong at any time, and the blessing of the goddess rendered it impervious to all steel and most spells.
When the humans were firmly enmeshed, Shakti made her way down the narrow walkway. She walked around the netting, observing the struggling humans within. She took a small silver cuff from her pinky and slid it onto the curve of one ear. This, a magical gift from the illithid Vestriss, enabled her to speak and understand the humans' coarse language.
"I have no use for you," she announced. "You will be set free, unharmed, in exchange for a small fee."
"Pay ransom to a drow?" snarled a thick, gray-bearded man. "Not a single coin, on my life!"
"Did I mention money? How very vulgar of you." Shakti smiled coldly. "I will trade many lives for one. Bring me the drow wench known as Liriel, and you will go free."
"Liriel?"
A long, skinny young man repeated the word incredulously. He twisted in the web as best he could, turning to face the warrior beside him. "Fyodor, is not Liriel your wychlaran? What does she mean by calling her 'drow'?"
"Oh, but she is," the priestess said with cruel pleasure. As an extra little sadistic twist, she added, "Who should carry this message but Fyodor, who knows this drow so very, very well?"
The boy looked to Fyodor with shattered eyes. "You would not do such a thing, bring a drow into Rashemen. Tell me she lies. Tell me you would never betray us so!"
For a long moment the warrior held the pleading stare. Then he turned to Shakti.
"Send the boy with me," he said in bleak tones, "and I will go."
Fyodor and Petyar did not speak until they were free of the Warrens. At last the older man spoke. "Go back to the village to warn the others. The drow are likely to attack."
"I have heard they can be treacherous," the boy said coldly. "Apparently the whole of that story has not been told."
The warrior caught his arm. "Petyar, there are things you do not understand. Zofia herself foresaw Liriel's coming. I am not happy that Liriel chose to present a name and form not her own, but that was her choice, not mine. She made it according to the light she had."
"The drow have precious little of that."
"I have watched Liriel's journey into the light," Fyodor said. "She is not what you think she is."
Some of the fury slipped from the young man's face, leaving only the hurt and worry. "I hope, cousin, that you are right."
Fyodor hurried to the hillock hut he shared with Liriel. The burden of his task lay heavy on his heart.
It was an impossible dilemma. In sending Petyar to take the message to the village and bring fighters to battle the drow, he was almost certainly letting his people know who and what Liriel was. If he did not, a band of his countrymen